AC/DC concert tickets are red hot right now. In fact, every show on the upcoming Black Ice Tour is already sold out, as far as I can tell. Tickets for Vancouver date sold out in 4 minutes while Columbus and Boston's lasted a mere fifteen. Toronto sold out in a half-hour, as well.Vancouver sold out so fast a group of nearly 20 fans who had hoped to charter a private jet to the show from the remote town of Prince George, BC had to cancel their flight plans. They were not happy campers, as you might suspect.
But don't fret, AC/DC fans, because the band has already added extra dates to the Fall tour and are expected to announce even more stops sometime this week. Not only that, but it's a good idea to keep checking back with Ticketmaster to see if any seats have become available due to returns or canceled orders. If all else fails, of course, there's always ticket scalpers and auctions on Ebay.
One has to wonder, however, how even before Black Ice tour tickets were officially being sold that they were up for grabs on Ticketmaster's own site, TicketsNow?
Not at face value, either! In fact, AC/DC tickets somewhere on the floor were listed at as much as $700 at some of the upcoming venues. As it stands at this moment, Tickets Now is offering "949 tickets available from $124 to $2140 each" for the October 30th show in Chicago! Other venue offerings are much the same so something is really rotten here and it isn't AC/DC's fault.
The problem is that large blocks of great seats are routinely held back from the public sale by Ticketmaster in order to "re-sell" them at much greater profit on their own network of sites. It's a scam as old as the sun in the ticket broker business and, unfortunately, AC/DC fans are being victimized all over the country right now.
Ironically, the only band to ever try to fight back against Ticketmaster was Pearl Jam in the nineties who charged that the retailer was taking advantage of their monopoly to sell tickets at more than 30% over face value. I say ironically because Pearl Jam's longtime producer, Brendan O'Brien, has just produced Black Ice for AC/DC.
9 comments:
Some of the tickets that are up for sale are from season ticket holders for sporting eventings in those venues who get "first shot" at concerts before they go on sale. I'm sure that is more of a venue policy than a Ticketmaster policy. Still sucks they can rip people off because of it.
Good point, Govner.
"Ticketmaster" holds the reins over here in the U.K. too. Fortunatly, not many sporting venues where season ticket holders can get first grabs, mostly arena's / concert halls.
B,T.W. Mr "Govner", Many thanks for many bootlegs.
I find it very pathetic that they let them buy the tickets for 91.50 (for my location) plus taxes, and then they let them sell at 2,245 for 2nd row tickets. I believe that you should only buy tickets if you are going see it your self, or helping someone buy them, and if for some reason you can't go, or just decide not to, you can only sell for what you paid for.
Those are my beliefes... but yes I did get my tickets within the five minutes they sold out in here, not the best seats, but I am seeing AC/DC so I'm not complainn.ing
Your probably right about that but in my honest opion,that should not be allowed if somebody has season tickets for a sporting event to have first options on concert events.Most have absolutley no intentions of going to not one concert.
I know there are some venues that don't hold sporting events and that only hold concerts that sell like a VIP package for people to get access to tickets for any show.You will pay a HIGH premium for that right though.
I'm sure those people are some of the people that will be selling a few of those over priced tickets on Ebay to try and recoup there VIP package membership money.
But also I'm sure about 70% or so of these way over priced tickets through ticket now are the doings of Ticket Master also trying to beat the other ticket brokers at there own game.Basically Ticket master is trying to make some of that money that they brokers are scamming from the music fans.
They old saying,
"If you can't beat em,join em"
I persoanlly think it should be illegal for any of these ticket brokers to have this kind of power.
This is just another BIG problem in the music biz,and the only people who are loosing out and paying the price are the real fans who can't get a decent ticket for a show unless your really get lucky and get one within literally the first minute of them going on sale.
They wonder why the music Biz is slowly falling apart and selling less music.Practices like this make some of the hard core fans stay far away from it all.
Peace
Russ
I can tell you for a fact, Ticketmaster does not have anything to do with the operations of Ticketsnow.
Ticketmaster does not control the inventory, the promoter does.They operate as a ticket retailer for the venue.Ticketmaster makes money off the service charges.
Ticketsnow is a secondary market for tickets. Tickets on ticketsnow.com are being sold by various sellers. Ticketsnow simply acts as a secure market place, or a way to recourse in the event the seller is trying to sale bogus tickets. They make money on there service charges not necessarily the price of the ticket.
I don't think there are any season tickets at the Forum, which is the Los Angeles venue. It can be hard getting great seats in LA without knowing someone - there are too many industry insiders with connections here - and without the fan club block being set aside, there would be NO way to purchase tickets through the regular channels as good as the ones I got, even right when a show goes on sale.
However, looking at the tickets up for resale in my area, almost all the listings for the really good seats state that the transfer will be made "day of show" - which must mean that they are the "non-ransferable" paperless tickets, where the buyer has to be present to get in.
So where's the loophole in the scalper-resistant system? Maybe you can just be escorted in by the original buyer without that buyer having to occupy one of the purchased seats himself. If so, there's a silly flaw in their system that's easy for anyone to exploit.
But if that can't be done, then how else can these scalpers sell these tickets without the complicity of someone working for the ticketing agent?
It also seems odd that resale listings were up so fast fos shows that had gone on sale only minutes before. But then again, perhaps if you list your tickets quick you can make a nice profit off someone disappointed at not getting good seats on Ticketmaster who wants immediate gratification.
My friend actually got ahold of four floor tickets in Chicago when told by Ticket master they weren't available after he was told the tix were being held for 2 minutes. Its a scam IMO.
I can't see why concert tickets can't be sold like airline tickets (besides the fact that scalpers would be out of business...). Only the people (in this case, REAL AC/DC fans!) that want to see the band should be allowed to buy the tickets. You make your reservation, pay for the tix, and on the concert day show your ID and ticket and be crossed off a master list at the venue entrance. That way if you don't give a *#%^ about AC/DC, like many out there do, you couldn't make a fortune off them! I would have paid a bit more than $100 to see them, IF that's the price of the tickets, because it would go to the band. But I don't see why I should support some lazy a** out there who doesn't even want to see the show but sells the $90 tickets he/she managed to get for $5000 (yes, I've seen them for that much on eBay).
First, I was really bummed out that AC/DC wasn't going to play in Portland (OR), so I thought I'd try to get to Vancouver, BC. Fat chance! I was online from 9:58 AM to close to 10 AM, and had no chance to even glimpse at one ticket...yet minutes later they show up on eBay and other sites for hundreds, even thousands. I was so pi**ed, I gave up even thinking about going. The next day, tix for Tacoma went on sale, and I had no way of getting to a computer as I was dropping somebody off at the airport. MAJOR Bummer!!! So next thing you know, while on my way to my son's soccer game, I get a call from my husband (who's actually somewhat of a computer phobic!) telling me he managed to get THREE tickets to Tacoma. It's a good thing we don't have a convertible, pleople would have called the cops, I screamed so loud! It's been a dream of mine for some years to take my two boys to see AC/DC, and I'm soooooooo happy we get to go! They'll be 5 and 9 at the time of the concert, which is a day after the younger one's birthday! I hope it'll be their best birthday present ever!......and when they're older and go to see other bands, they'll always measure them by AC/DC standards...might as well never go to any other concert, though......nothing measures up to AC/DC !!!
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